


The One Where Lance Meets Keith

by the_lanky_kat



Series: The Best Place for Us to Be (is by each others sides) [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates, Gen, M/M, Pidge is a little shit, Pre-Relationship, Red Kogane makes an appearance, Shiro and Pidge bet on the demise of others, rated T for language i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 09:41:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11598000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_lanky_kat/pseuds/the_lanky_kat
Summary: Keith hates his brother. Pidge is a little shit. Red hates Lance. Shiro and Pidge make bets.





	The One Where Lance Meets Keith

**Author's Note:**

> Yeet. This is part 2 of the College AU I'm doing. The full fic is The Best Place for Us to Be (is by each others sides). Enjoy :D

__Lance stands outside apartment 209 with something akin to absolute abject terror on his face. Pidge stands behind him, reading something on their phone. Or maybe texting someone, though Lance has no clue who they would be texting.

Lance's future roommate stands behind this door. This meeting could make or break whatever friendship they could possibly have.

Of course, this wouldn't have been a problem if this guy would have actually _met with Lance_ two days ago instead of sending his big brother to do his bidding. But, well, Lance can't get too mad because he got to meet his hero: Takashi "Shiro" Shirogane, the legendary frat boy who has passed into history as Altea University's own _Champion_.

Shiro was... well, he was a lot more mature now than he had been in the past. Four years really changes a person, apparently. Though Lance was always a fan of the saying "You can take the boy out of the frat, but not the frat out of the boy" or whatever the saying actually is.

"Are you going to knock, or stare at the door until you gain magical telepathic powers?" Pidge snorts.

Lance turns his head to glare at them with as much annoyance as he can muster.

"I'm just... mentally preparing. Who knows what lies beyond that door?"

Pidge gives Lance an incredulous look that immediately makes him feel silly.

"What lies beyond that door is an emo 20 year old with a mullet who's wearing half of a jacket. Somebody buy that poor boy a _real_ coat," Pidge mutters, rolling their eyes.

" _What_?" Lance shrieks.

A _mullet_?

The door opens without Lance knocking. Maybe he _does_ have telepathic powers.

Lance's first reaction is to be horrified for that poor boy's hair. A real life _mullet_. What fresh hell is this? The 80s?

Lance's second reaction is more like _holy shit_ because _holy shit_. Lance really needed more time to mentally prepare because _wow_ , that boy is pretty, bad hair style aside. He looks like the dark and brooding type with his all-black attire that clings to obvious muscles. _Oh god_ , Lance thinks, _he could snap me in half like a twig._ And if that thought isn't arousing, Lance doesn't know what is. Not to even mention that guy's eyes. Who even has violet eyes?!? It's inhuman! What if this guy was an _alien_!?!

"Why are you hovering outside my apartment like a creep?" the guy deadpans.

"Keith!"

Lance sighs in relief as he hears Shiro's blessedly familiar voice from inside the apartment. Seconds later, Shiro appears behind Keith with a brilliant smile that almost blinds Lance with its contrast to Keith's grumpy frown.

"Keith," Shiro repeats, placing a hand gently on Keith's shoulder. "This is Lance McLain, the guy who needs a roommate. I met him a couple of days ago."

Keith's frown turns into a glare directed at Lance, and Lance smothers the urge to point out that Keith looks like some broody emo teenager who listens to _way_ too much MCR. But if Lance needs a roommate, then he's going to have to be nice to Mr. Broody and Emo.

"Hi," Lance says smoothly, trying not to grimace under Keith's glare.

"Hi," Keith grunts back.

They share mutually awkward eye contact for about three seconds before both looking away and shuffling uncomfortably. Oh boy, this is going to be a _delight_.

"Well this is awkward as hell," Pidge says, rolling their eyes.

"Pidge! Language!" Shiro exclaims, looking affronted.

Lance raises his eyebrows at Keith in a way that hopefully asks _Is he always this way?_ Keith gives him a Look accompanied by a small smirk that makes Lance's heart flutter slightly. So yeah, Lance takes that to mean _Yeah, he's always this way._

"Well," Shiro says, turning back to Lance after flashing Pidge a scolding look that they brush off. "Would you like to come in? I'd offer you something to drink, but I'm not sure that Keith's paid his water bill and I know for a fact that all he has in that fridge over there is some sort of energy drink."

Shiro chuckles at his own half-joke, but from the look of the place, Lance isn't entirely sure if Shiro's actually _joking_. There's barely anything in the apartment, just the normal stuff, but nothing close to even mildly personal.

"How long have you lived here?" Lance asks, surveying the emptiness of pretty much everything.

"Keith's lived here for a little over a month now," Shiro answers.

Shiro motions for them to sit down in Keith's untouched living room area. It's pretty awkward considering Lance takes the left side of the couch and Keith takes the right, leaving Pidge to flop down between them. It _shouldn't_ be awkward, but the whole situation gives Lance some weird vibes, like he doesn't belong in this apartment or in Shiro and Keith's lives.

Shiro flashes Lance a comforting smile as he takes the only available spot left in a worn-looking, pale blue rocking chair. Shiro sits in it like it's a normal chair, but Lance gets the vague impression that the rocking chair is meant to be curled up in with a cat and a good book. It's the only visible part of Keith's apartment that looks like it's actually a part of someone's _home_.

"So," Lance says awkwardly to Keith. "I heard you have a cat?"

Keith raises his gaze from the thread he was picking on the couch cushion to frown at Lance, like he wasn't supposed to know about the cat or something.

"Yeah, so what?" he snarls.

Lance immediately tenses, wanting to bite back some sort of angry remark about how Keith shouldn't be so _hostile_ towards his guests, but Shiro beats him to it.

"Keith," Shiro says sternly. "Why don't you go get Red and show her to Lance?"

Keith removes his glare from Lance and settles it on Shiro, though the elder boy looks unfazed. That decides it, Shiro is officially Lance's roll model _and_ third favorite person (sorry Pidge).

Keith (surprisingly) does as he's told. He slides off of the couch and wanders off to one of the three closed doors, which is presumably his room. At least Lance now knows where he'd be sleeping if he moved in: somewhere to the right side of the apartment, right beside the bathroom. He's not sure how he feels about that fact, though.

"I'm sorry about Keith," Shiro says quietly. "He's not normally this way around new people."

Pidge snorts at that, causing Shiro to glare at them.

"He's actually always this way," Pidge points out, unperturbed. "He just doesn't meet enough new people for anybody to make a general assumption about how he reacts when he's uncomfortable."

"I thought you—and I quote—"don't really know the guy"," Lance says, flicking Pidge upside the head. "You could have _warned_ me!"

Pidge punches Lance in the shoulder, _hard_. For not having any muscle, their punches hurt like a son-of-a-bitch.

"Where's the fun in warning you?" Pidge cackles evilly.

Keith chooses that moment to re-enter the room, cradling a rust-colored feline in his arms like a baby. The cat squints suspiciously at everyone in the room like they're her enemy. Lance isn't sure who makes him feel more threatened: Keith or the cat.

"This is Red," Keith says, sounding almost not-mad for the first time since Lance arrived at the apartment.

"Who names their red cat _Red_?" Lance can't help but snort.

And oh, that was a mistake. Now Red and Keith are both glaring at him like he set their loved ones on fire. Oops.

"That coming from you," Pidge snorts.

It takes Lance a moment or two to realize what Pidge is talking about.

"Do _not_ bring Blue into this," Lance hisses, slapping his hand over their mouth in an effort to stop them from explaining to his possible-future-roommate and personal-hero that he still sleeps with a stuffed lion.

"Blue?" Shiro asks.

Lance looks mortified and Pidge simply cackles some more.

"He still sleeps with a stuffed blue l—"

Lance slaps his hand over Pidge's mouth once again, trying to keep them contained and hopefully not spilling all of his embarrassing habits. He shouldn't have brought them along. He was foolish to think Pidge would help win over his possible-future-roommate.

"Well..." Shiro says, awkwardly glancing between Keith, Pidge, and Lance. "At least you two have something in common. You both like naming things after the primary colors."

Pidge cackles even more and Lance removes his hand in defeat. Well, at least _someone_ is enjoying his misery.

Pidge cackles a little bit more, their laugh drawing a chuckle from Shiro, before everyone returns to the matter at hand.

"You aren't allergic to cats, right?" Keith asks, cuddling Red protectively to his chest.

Keith finally sits down on the arm of the couch furthest away from Lance, eying him with suspicion.

"Nah. I love cats. They're so cuddly!" Lance says, motioning to how Red has curled up against Keith.

"If you try and cuddle my cat, she'll kill you," Keith deadpans, stroking a hand over Red's fur.

She emits a purr, but keeps watching Lance with her seemingly resting bitch face. Yeah, Lance can probably see the cat killing him in his sleep if he so much as looks at her funny.

(Kind of like her owner.)

"When can you move in?" Shiro asks Lance, causing everyone in the room to look at him with surprise.

"Really, Shiro? How do you know this guy isn't a serial killer or something?" Keith asks, frowning at his older brother.

Shiro waves off his question nonchalantly.

"It'll be fine. You have over a half dozen knives in your room, I think you can hold your own," Shiro says.

"I'm not a serial killer!" Lance squeaks out. "But maybe you are! Who has that many knives in their room!?!"

"Me," Keith says, twisting his frown back into a glare. "And why do you want him to move in so soon? This guy's weird."

" _I'm_ weird?" Lance squawks, throwing his arms up in the air with exasperation.

"It's not like you're going to find anyone else to move in with you," Shiro says, ignoring Lance. "And Lance isn't going to find anyone to move in with this late in the school year."

Keith and Lance both frown at Shiro, but Lance knows Shiro has a point. It's not like there's any other choice for either of them, no matter how much they dislike each other.

"So, Lance," Shiro repeats. "When can you move in?"

All eyes shift to Lance, and he feels a bit uncomfortable with the fact that two out of the four of them are glares. Well, one's a glare. One's a cat staring angrily at him.

"Uh... I can move in next Wednesday. That's my day off of work," Lance answers.

"Where do you work?" Keith asks suddenly.

"The aquarium. Mostly the gift shop but sometimes I get to help with tours and stuff," Lance explains.

For some odd reason, Keith looks fairly pleased. He's still not smiling, but he's not glaring and he's not frowning as hard as he was. Lance takes that as a win.

"Then it's settled," Shiro says happily. "You'll move in next Wednesday. Keith will give you the short tour of the apartment. Pidge, can I see you in the kitchen for a moment?"

Pidge scrambles off of the couch to join Shiro, whispering suspiciously to him when they're out of earshot.

"Are you coming or what?" Keith huffs, already standing.

"Yeah, yeah," Lance scoffs. "Don't get your panties in a twist."

*****

"You owe me ten bucks, Pidge, pay up," Shiro whispers, sticking his hand out.

Pidge rolls their eyes. They can't believe they lost a bet to _Shiro_ of all people. They slap the money into Shiro's outstretched hand, frowning slightly at the pleased smile that stretches across his face.

"Do you want to make another bet?" Pidge whispers, flashing Shiro a twenty from their pocket.

"Sure," Shiro says, grinning. "But you're only going to lose again."

Pidge smirks. There's no way they're losing twice.

"I bet twenty dollars that Keith and Lance won't survive a week with each other. I'm talking, Keith is going to either punch or actually murder Lance within a week of his moving in. Lance will play some sort of prank to get revenge for something before a week is over," Pidge says confidently.

Shiro hums thoughtfully to himself, stroking an imaginary beard.

"I'll take that bet. I bet twenty bucks that Lance will make it work with Keith. No punching, no pranks, one week. Deal?"

Shiro offers up his hand for shaking, a challenging glint in his eyes. Pidge considers this for a moment before making their decision.

"Okay deal, one week. They're going to have killed each other. You're foolish to bet against me, old man," Pidge taunts.

"And you're foolish to bet against me, young whippersnapper," Shiro jokes, ruffling Pidge's mop of hair. "They're totally going to kill each other, but I know my brother's limits. He can last a week. I'm counting on it."

"Sure, old man, the bet is on."

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and Comments are greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading! :D


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